These same ads have been around for a while now. Is it the size of the pop-up?

Yes, that is the trigger that is causing people to be upset (and rightfully so). And the idea that if TiVo can make the ads larger it indicates it could also lead to more ads, more frequently, in more places, and with additional annoyances.

The main point is... The ads are annoying! Does TiVo really want to annoy paying customers just to make a few more bucks selling ads? If just a few customers leave or don't buy because of the ads is it still worth it?

I think the answer is undeniably "yes", even independent of whether or not it convinces the cable companies to use TiVo.

TiVo is spending, and has spent, many millions of dollars developing targeted advertising and audience profiling and measurement. The goal from the beginning (15 years ago) was for that to contribute about a third of revenue eventually. Unfortunately, TiVo never got the necessary number of machines out there for this to ever get off the ground. Now, with the adoption of TiVo by the smaller cable companies, they're getting the numbers to put their plans into action. Both they and the cable companies are interested in this.

So even if they lose a bit in the stand-alone market with these ads, they are advancing their long-term plans. They've spent a lot more money than that on targeted advertising, so far unproductively.

To those new folks in the thread saying "but if I knew it had ads" or "we shouldn't have to pay for it an get ads" This comes up every time the ad platform gets tweaked, and every time folks say "it's the last straw, I'm leaving.

Perhaps one of the many reasons TiVo dropped below 1 million retail subscribers for the first time since 2004. Having said that, Roamio is way better than Premiere and they should get a nice subscriber bounce/resurgence. But the updated pause menu ads are disgusting.

Is there a picture of these new and terrible ads around? On my older boxes, I never even recognized they were there except when someone new got a box and complained. So, how are they so much worse on a Roamio?

Ok so now I am seeing where these ads are affecting the user experience:

I have a folder with 2 shows in it. I go into the folder and below the 2 shows you see a line for the Carbonite ad. Now, the ad takes a second to load.

Where I can see a usability issue is:

I went into the bottom show in the list to view the detail screen. I wanted to click back and up to go back to the list and up to the top show in the list. I can do this, but right after I click up (to highlight the top show), the page refreshes to display the ad and now my highlighted show is the bottom one again.

No, it's not earth shattering......but still, I want the interface to not get in my way with ads.

Ok so now I am seeing where these ads are affecting the user experience:

I have a folder with 2 shows in it. I go into the folder and below the 2 shows you see a line for the Carbonite ad. Now, the ad takes a second to load.

Where I can see a usability issue is:

I went into the bottom show in the list to view the detail screen. I wanted to click back and up to go back to the list and up to the top show in the list. I can do this, but right after I click up (to highlight the top show), the page refreshes to display the ad and now my highlighted show is the bottom one again.

No, it's not earth shattering......but still, I want the interface to not get in my way with ads.

-Kevin

I haven't seen a delay in the ad showing up. When the list of shows populates, the ad was there at the bottom right away. At least this was the case last night. I looked just now and I don't see the ad listed in any of the folders I looked at any more.

I haven't seen a delay in the ad showing up. When the list of shows populates, the ad was there at the bottom right away. At least this was the case last night. I looked just now and I don't see the ad listed in any of the folders I looked at any more.

I tried multiple times after it first occurred. By going into the details and back out. I'd say at least 7 out of 10 times the ad line took a second to show up. This is similar to the delete/keep box at the end of a recording.....the ad shows up a split second after the box does.

Doesn't really matter if it always happens or only happens once....get the damn ads away from the core functionality of the box.

Oh my. This is not an issue of whether anyone wants Tivo to stay in business. I think we all do, and I doubt that any of us here have insight into their revenue from these ads or even whether the Roamio product is profitable with or without them.

I would happily pay more for an ad-free option (Amazon has done this well with the Kindle). I don't want to see the same ad repeatedly, and I want a choice other than switching to a service other than Tivo.

Well, it seems we have someone who literally said they didn't care about TiVo's profitability, they just wanted their 2 lbs of flesh that they believe they paid for. That's what I was responding to. That's unacceptable.

I don't want ads on my TV either. I don't want to watch commercials. But if I am shown that I can either have X with commercials, or not have X, I am going to take X with commercials. How much I paid for X initially is irrelevant.

For example, my kindle fire has ads on it. I paid like $120 dollars for the thing... but it has ads. I accepted that because it was either that, or pay more money to rid of the ads.

TiVo is not giving you a "pay more money to opt out" option. But presumably, there could be one, in theory, if not for the engineering time they would have to put in to that.

If TiVo were making a lot of profit, I think we'd have a valid complaint about them squeezing out every dime of ad revenues they could. But they aren't. So we don't. We can either deal with it, and it's the cost of TiVo ownership for TiVo to stay in business, or walk away. Those are your choices.

The main point is... The ads are annoying! Does TiVo really want to annoy paying customers just to make a few more bucks selling ads? If just a few customers leave or don't buy because of the ads is it still worth it?

Ah, now THAT'S a good question.

I don't find them that annoying, but how many people have to find them annoying before it stops being worth it?

Companies have been asking this questions for a really long time.

i think Amazon's "with offers!" model, for example, gives the "opt out" just so you have it. I don't know anyone who has ever taken it. Just the fact that it EXISTS makes people go "ok, so, I don't HAVE to look at the ads... but I will, because money." But when you don't offer that, it makes people go "JUUUUUUSSSSSTICEEEEEEE! FREEEDOMOMMMMMMMM!!!! I AM SO MADDDDDDD!!!!!!"

We just want options to make suboptimal choices, even if we don't make them!

I don't find them that annoying, but how many people have to find them annoying before it stops being worth it?

Companies have been asking this questions for a really long time.

i think Amazon's "with offers!" model, for example, gives the "opt out" just so you have it. I don't know anyone who has ever taken it. Just the fact that it EXISTS makes people go "ok, so, I don't HAVE to look at the ads... but I will, because money." But when you don't offer that, it makes people go "JUUUUUUSSSSSTICEEEEEEE! FREEEDOMOMMMMMMMM!!!! I AM SO MADDDDDDD!!!!!!"

We just want options to make suboptimal choices, even if we don't make them!

The difference in getting the non-ads version of the Kindle is $15-$20. You were actually too cheap to pay that pittance to avoid annoying ads but you'll pay hundreds for a TiVo? Wow.

The comparison with TiVo would be that someone bought a Kindle/iPad, which maybe had web advertising that the person expected, and then they added pop-up ads when you are running apps, etc.

Many many people would find this annoying and rightfully so.

TiVo should offer an option to opt-out for those of us that are annoyed by the new ads, because it did not exist when we bought the product.

I might be the person you were referring to who was 'not concerned' about TiVo profitability. It is the companies responsibility to make products that are marketable to large numbers of customers and turn a profit. It's NOT up to the consumer to wring their hands about whether a price-cut, change in marketing, etc, is going to result in their beloved company going kaput... that is for TiVo upper management and board of directors to worry about.

And those of you not on the platform long- TiVo has *NEVER* had pause ads with a black background (not that I ever recall) or anywhere near that large. And with a ONE LINE text ad plus the bar, they are managing to obscure 25% of the vertical screen across 66% of the horizontal screen.

The delete ad doesn't matter much, since you very rarely need to see what is behind it, and it only happens once per program.

I haven't seen a delay in the ad showing up. When the list of shows populates, the ad was there at the bottom right away. At least this was the case last night. I looked just now and I don't see the ad listed in any of the folders I looked at any more.

There's at least 1-2 second delay added when you get to end of a show and have to wait extra for the ad to populate before you get the keep or delete menu to appear and be functional. Initially there's no ad, then the menu text gets pushed up to make room for the ad. I noticed and was irritated by the delay immediately especially since Roamio is otherwise usually so much more responsive.
The pause ads themselves I can deal with since I always enable SPSPS 1st thing following a reboot, but even those cause a slight delay in the pausing and unpausing.

And those of you not on the platform long- TiVo has *NEVER* had pause ads with a black background (not that I ever recall) or anywhere near that large. And with a ONE LINE text ad plus the bar, they are managing to obscure 25% of the vertical screen across 66% of the horizontal screen.

The delete ad doesn't matter much, since you very rarely need to see what is behind it, and it only happens once per program.

STOP THIS CRAP, TiVo Inc....

I haven't seen any ads with a black background. They have all been dark Blue. Unless I'm just mis-remembering. When I saw the pic someone posted my first thought was that something was wrong with it because I thought the background matched everything else with the Roamio which was dark Blue.

Thanks. The ones on the premiere and older boxes were like billboards- you knew it was there but never really saw it. This actually is different, upon first review it seems much harder to ignore, at least initially.

Is this what is intended? Or is the larger box with all of that empty space a bug to be squashed?

The difference in getting the non-ads version of the Kindle is $15-$20. You were actually too cheap to pay that pittance to avoid annoying ads but you'll pay hundreds for a TiVo? Wow.

It's not a matter of cheap. I would be paying 15-20 for NOTHING. So, no, I am not willing to burn $20 in a fire for no reason.

Quote:

The comparison with TiVo would be that someone bought a Kindle/iPad, which maybe had web advertising that the person expected, and then they added pop-up ads when you are running apps, etc.

No, pop-up ads require you to remove them. the TiVo ads do not. The Amazon ads show up on the unlock screen. Equivalent to the pause screen on the TiVo.

Quote:

Many many people would find this annoying and rightfully so.

TiVo should offer an option to opt-out for those of us that are annoyed by the new ads, because it did not exist when we bought the product.

"existed when we bought the product" is irrelevant to products that are updated. Out of the home streaming didn't exist when some people bought their Roamios. Would TiVo be justified in charging for that feature now, or would you be enraged about that?

What we are justified in being 'annoyed' about is not relevant to the conversation. I am annoyed by TV ads.

Quote:

I might be the person you were referring to who was 'not concerned' about TiVo profitability. It is the companies responsibility to make products that are marketable to large numbers of customers and turn a profit. It's NOT up to the consumer to wring their hands about whether a price-cut, change in marketing, etc, is going to result in their beloved company going kaput... that is for TiVo upper management and board of directors to worry about.

It is the companies job to sell you a product, that you buy, and then continue to make a profit off of that product.

Congrats, TiVo did that. You bought it. Now they are selling ads. Sounds like your mission parameters were accomplished. So stop being mad at them for doing exactly what you think they are supposed to do.

I'm not the only one mad at them. If enough of us get annoyed with them and the word gets around, it could affect their sales and outweigh whatever pittance they are getting for selling an obnoxious advertisement to Carbonite.... or people could just quietly accept every ad change until you have large full screen ads on every screen.... because that's sort of the ultimate goal in marketing, to force eye-balls to look at adds every so many minutes.

TiVo should offer an option to opt-out for those of us that are annoyed by the new ads, because it did not exist when we bought the product.

Again, TiVo has been doing ads - including pop-up ads - for years, including the entire duration of the Roamio product line that this forum is discussing. You cannot accurately state that the ads "did not exist when [you] bought the product." They may not have yet run an ad on the Roamio product line - but that is not the same thing as what you stated.

I'm not the only one mad at them. If enough of us get annoyed with them and the word gets around, it could affect their sales and outweigh whatever pittance they are getting for selling an obnoxious advertisement to Carbonite....

Word got around - the Associated Press covered it via dozens of pubs in 2009 (and quote me in the story). TiVo obviously didn't care, despite a continued decline in retail subscribers. Several years later, customers (existing and potential) are probably more tolerant and expectant of these things and Roamio is way better than the Premiere. So I imagine they'll carry on. It is what it is. We gotta suck it up, or move on.

I'm not the only one mad at them. If enough of us get annoyed with them and the word gets around, it could affect their sales and outweigh whatever pittance they are getting for selling an obnoxious advertisement to Carbonite.... or people could just quietly accept every ad change until you have large full screen ads on every screen.... because that's sort of the ultimate goal in marketing, to force eye-balls to look at adds every so many minutes.

I think they will lose more sales by not having Android streaming support than having some ads.